ORU offers a very sincere THANK YOU to the following people in the great State of Oregon for each of their contributions to allow the youth to return to water practices on the Willamette River in Portland during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
· Jason Miner, Natural Resources Policy Director, Office of Governor Kate Brown – for the tireless long weekend he spent accepting, reviewing and approving the ORU COVID-19 youth water practice proposal and clarifying access to the Oaks Park Boathouse as a tenant.
· Brandon Roben, CEO, Oaks Amusement Park – for his openness, support and willingness to reopen the boathouse.
· Sam Taylor, Oaks Park Community Boathouse Manager – for his thoroughness in logistics to ensure all bases were covered and that the EO 20-12 clarification could apply to all boathouse tenants.
· Laura Jackson, Oaks Park Community Boathouse President – for her inter-tenant coordination efforts.
· Rachel Kelley, Sales Executive, AssuredPartners Inc. – for the patience, professionalism and extra time she took to clearly explain the insurance coverages included in the standard USRowing policy for all interested parties.
· Susan Smith, Chief Domestic Officer and interim CEO, USRowing – for her tenacity and fortitude to quickly obtain outstanding insurance questions to resolution.
· Honorable Senator Kathleen Taylor, Oregon State Senate – for her moral support and her staff’s direction on best resolution of the clarification request.
· Barb Trammell, CEO, Oregon Golf Association – for her guidance on the clarification request approach that was ultimately successful.
· Leah Horner and other State of Oregon staff of the Governor’s Office – for the behind the scenes work that we will never know about that helped to advance the clarification request through the office to ultimate approval.
· Nadia Petrova and Plamen Petrov, ORU Coaches – for creative thinking and development of the plan which was ultimately successful in meeting the COVID-19 distancing and sanitization requirements of EO 20-12 and OHA and for their continued tireless work to now provide two practices per day, six days per week to allow all youth team members a chance to row every week.
· Brad Hathaway, ORU Treasurer and the Finance Committee – for their flexibility and extra effort to adapt the billing process to the ever-changing situation and maintain budgetary/forecast updates for the ORU Board.
· Christopher Redmond, ORU Secretary – for his effort to spearhead the clarification request process to completion.
